Breaking down the Arizona Cardinals OT loss to Jaguars with A.Q. Shipley

Breaking down the Arizona Cardinals OT loss to Jaguars with A.Q. Shipley

AQ, good morning to you, sir. Good morning, boys. How are we? We’re doing good. Um, six losses now of four points or less, three in a row, a string of five straight. Uh, three straight walk-off losses, the debacle at Tennessee, the overtime loss yesterday. Where would you put this one on the scale of frustrating losses? Uh, if you had to put them in a pecking order, AQ, I I don’t know if I can do that. They’re all They’re all equally fr as frustrating, I think, is the answer. But listen, I think at the end of the day, it it’s the parody of the NFL, right? It’s it’s constant seven points or less games, and the ones that ultimately win them are the ones that are ultimately in the playoff at the end of the year. And that’s that’s what it comes down to. I remember in 2012, I was playing for the Indianapolis Colts, and we had seven or eight fourth quarter comebacks to win. And that was ultimately the difference between being 10 and six and six and 10, right? And so, um, that’s just what this league is. I mean, it’s it it always comes down to one score or less. And what people don’t realize, obviously, it’s so much different than the other pro sports leagues because the salary cap dictates. And every single team is paid the same amount of money across their roster for the most part. And so, you know, it comes down to the details. And I know we keep saying that that term and that’s what keeps coming up, but it is it’s all about the details. All right, so we know that the running game has been broken for a while now, but now they’re having a hard time. The offensive line’s having a hard time pass protecting Jacobe Brassette. He’s been under a ton of pressure the last couple of weeks. What’s going on with this offensive line AQ and what’s it going to take to fix it? It’s tough. It’s tough to watch. I mean, listen, I think early on in the in the year, I think, you know, that was coming into the season, I I couldn’t wait to watch it from the booth and just see cuz the last two years, I’ve been so impressed with their run game and how well their offensive line has been playing. And for whatever reason early on, it just it wasn’t clicking. And then you can use the excuse of, okay, they lost James Connor and they lost Trey Benson, right? Well, it wasn’t very good in the beginning of the season either. So, that’s not the answer, right? And so I think when you look at it, you continuously watch it. Every time I turn on the film, it’s it’s it’s literally every single guy has some mistake or two during the game, whether it’s getting caught on an edge or maybe going to the wrong guy. So I think it’s a multitude of things and I’m not sure where to even start when that begins because it’s it’s communication, it’s fundamentals, it’s technique, it’s all of the above when you watch it. And let’s also not forget when you can’t run it, it only makes your job pass protecting that much harder. Very true. AQ Shipley, our guest, as he is every Monday here on Bickley and Marada Mornings. Um wanted to talk to you about uh the the the decision on the last play of the game. Uh fourth and four down three in overtime. Brassette takes the shot to Xavier Weaver. Well covered, knocked away. I know a lot of Cardinal fans were up in arms like why don’t you go to a more trusted receiver or why take the uh you know low percentage shot down the field instead of just trying to metriculate get the first down keep it moving. What did you think of the decision by Jacobe to throw the deep ball and and go for the big shot? Yeah, I heard I heard the explanation and I think whenever you look at that and you see um one of the safeties come down. I think I saw the the television replay where Archeletta and the boys were talking about it and they said, “Okay, they got what they wanted. This safety comes down, but then Wingard comes from the opposite safety.” I just think it’s such a low percentage shot. I think whenever I look at that and I see that, I mean, I don’t know if you heard me on the broadcast, I was just like, I just don’t get it right. Like it like I just for me it was hard for me to fathom that because that underneath little stick route to Trey McBride works every single time you run it. That little five yard turn around. I mean he does such a good every time. He’s so he’s so good at boxing out using his body to his advantage. So for me a four yard, five yard stick route to Trey McBride at least keeps the game moving. It keeps you in the game, you know. And when you look at what Michael Wilson’s done, you look at what Dorch did in this game. I mean, you had three guys that were productive. And then for for me to sit there and wrap my head around we’re just going to take a 30 40 yard shot to Zay Weaver, I’m just like, uhh, I just didn’t get it. I didn’t understand. It it was it was it defied logic and it was almost as if at that point in time they’re like, let’s either win this or lose this right here. And it kind of lost the patience and and and the sense of the moment, if you will. All right. I I’m also curious on the play in which the Cardinals did not get up to the line of scrimmage and spike the ball. They probably could have gotten two plays out of that. I think there was 25 seconds on the clock when Michael Wilson caught the ball. They were real late. The team was real late getting down and we know that that Michael Wilson spun the ball, which I’m sure he’ll never ever do again. Were there were there institutional failures on that play as well in your opinion, AQ? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I think those are things, right? situational football are some of the things that the really really good teams do not mess up. I I think it is a point of emphasis whether it’s during the week or whether it’s every Saturday. I know with Bruce Arens and I know Saturday mornings during our walkth through that final kind of touch was all the situational stuff. It was hey how are we going to handle this two-minute? How we going to handle backed up? How are we going to handle third and short? How are we going to handle the goal line, the short yardage? All of the situational keys. And during the week, you’re hitting all of the the talking points in the meetings. It’s, okay, here’s the dos, here’s the don’ts, right? And so, obviously, I mean, you can think back and Fitz was as good as anybody making a big play in a two-minute drill. You’d see him ball out running to the referee, right? And so, all of those things, you know, kind of play a key role in this. And then, you know, it’s easy for us obviously that’s that’s our job, right, on Monday morning to be the Monday morning quarterback and sit there and say, okay, well, what what could have been better, right? And so when you look at that and you see uh that ball completed I think with like you said like 25 seconds left like that easily could have been snapped and spiked by 16 and then all of a sudden you’re right you got two plays and those two plays at least go to the end zone. You give yourself an opportunity you slow everything down. You calm everybody down and at least give yourself a shot. Yeah. AQ Shipley our guest. Uh and AQ when when things are going like this and I heard some quotes from some u you know sound bites from the the locker room yesterday where Cardinals personnel saying well it’s got to go our way sometime when things are going down this road and I appreciate even though I find it frustrating to a degree the consistency of the message from the coaching staff and the players following that message and but you know behind closed doors what are players doing to try to shake this this uh frustration if you will do you do anything different or you just buy in 100% % to what’s happening. I mean, what what really goes on during a stretch like this? I think you have to stay convicted in your messaging, but you obviously have to do something differently physically. Yeah. I mean, the physical things aren’t working, right? And so, you know, to sit there and say that it’s got to go our way sometime that that’s that’s not correct. It doesn’t have to go your way. You have to go earn it. You have to go take it, right? Like, nobody’s going to give you anything, especially in this league. In fact, people love to see people fail in this league. other teams, their whole goal is to take you to the deep end and keep you down, right? Like that’s that’s the whole purpose of this game. It’s a violent game. It’s a it’s a dog eat dog world in this league. And so if you don’t go out and take it, if you don’t go out and grab the bull by the horns, then it’s it’s ne it’s not going to go your way, right? And so when you sit there, like I love the messaging. I love how convicted, you know, the coaching staff is in the messaging. And obviously the boys are echoing that sentiment when it comes to their messaging postgame and during the week and all of those things. And that’s great, but at the end of the day, you got to go earn it. You got to go get it. You got to go take it. And that’s that’s the parity of this league, right? And so when you think of it, I think there does need to be something. You can’t just keep going out there and doing the same thing over and over again on the field every week running the same plays, running the same schemes, running the same offenses, same personnel groups because week in week out it’s three points or less you’re losing by. Yeah. AQ, great stuff as always. Appreciate it. We will talk to you next week. But uh a happy holiday to you and your family. Happy Thanksgiving to you guys. Enjoy the week. AQ Shipley, our guest every Monday. It’s called the center of the Cardinals brought to you by Nhart Auto Center. Thanks for watching Bickley and Marada. Click to see the latest Bickley blast and hit the button in the middle to subscribe to Arizona Sports.

Arizona Cardinals radio color commentator A.Q. Shipley joined Bickley & Marotta to break down the team’s overtime loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Bickley | Cardinals’ overtime loss to Jaguars is a full-circle return to losing games in close fashion: https://arizonasports.com/dan-bickley/cardinals-full-circle/3603408/

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Video: Felisa Cárdenas and Jeremy Schnell/Arizona Sports
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